[TriLUG] Any Kubuntu/Ubuntu users explain to me why my IDE drives show up as sda?

[Matt Pusateri]

Randy Barlow wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:12:49 -0400, Chess Griffin
> <chess at chessgriffin.com> declared:
>   
>> Yes, this was a kernel change in 2.6.20, IIRC.  I had something to do 
>> with the kernel using libATA drivers for PATA as well as SATA from
>> now on.  Since the kernel now uses this new PATA/IDE subsystem, which
>> (like the SATA subsystem) goes through SCSI layer, all drives will
>> show up as /dev/sd*.  I see this same thing on Slackware, Arch Linux,
>> and Debian as well.
>>     
>
> Hmm, anybody know if this is actually an upstream change or not?
> Because I am not seeing this change in kernel 2.6.24 on Gentoo with two
> different systems that both use IDE.  Perhaps it's just a patch to the
> upstream kernel that was deployed for Debian and Debian-like systems
> (Ubuntu)?
>
>   
My guess is that they don't have a good mechanism for changing 
everything due to a kernel upgrade, /etc/fstab might have to change 
etc...  So if you had a system that had the old libata the used /dev/hd, 
then when you kernel upgrade they probably just support the legacy 
drivers, so that no one's systems break and fail to boot on a kernel 
upgrade.  But if you install a distro from scratch that has the newer 
kernel, then you probably get the /dev/sd device naming, if the distro 
install CD has the newer kernel from the get go.


Matt P.